New Regions Spark Outrage

The second and final draft of new athletic regions were announced for the 2015-2017 seasons on December Fourth .  These new revised regions have come under a lot of fire, especially from Highland faculty and students, following major changes to the proposed regions that from November 20^th.

Originally, Highland was put into a region with cross-town rivals East, Olympus and Skyline, as well as Hillcrest and Murray, which was widely regarded as an exciting change from athletes at all school involved.  However, the Board of Trustees completely flipped the regions on their heads, and Highland is now slated in a region with Bonneville, Bountiful, Box Elder, Ogden, and East.

No one is more frustrated about these revisions then Principal Paul Schulte.

“We are disappointed.  The regions that were presented earlier were wonderful.” Schulte said.  “We were going to be with Olympus and Skyline, some real natural rivalries, and now we are in a region where we really don’t have those natural rivalries.”

Not only is the new region going to effect the rivalries within them, it will also have a serious effect on athletes.  With travel times to Box Elder and Ogden peaking over an hour and a half, athletes will have to miss more school, and team preparation will be negatively affected.

One such student athlete affected by the change is Sophomore Jake Boren.  Boren is a three sport athlete and plays Football, Basketball, and Track.  Boren was one of the many athletes upset by the change in regions, especially since he still has two more full years of sports left.

“When you travel it drains your energy, and longer bus rides will make it worse” Boren said.  “I liked the original regions better because we would have gotten to play some of our rivals that we don’t normally play.  I was pissed when they changed them to these new ones.”

However, East and Highland are not standing idly by as these new, controversial regions go into effect.  Even though Schulte is leaving Highland, he is making it his personal objective to see out the appeal against these revised regions.  Currently Schulte as well as the administration from East are preparing an appeal in order to get Highland back into a region with Olympus and Skyline.  They have 10 days to prepare and file the appeal to the Board of Trustees, and then will have to take further steps in order for it to pass, including a spoken presentation in front of the Board.

“My biggest goal is that we have Highland, East, Skyline and Olympus together,” Schulte said.  “I’ll travel, but I think we should have those four schools together.”

These new regions have already caused a lot of commotion in the state, but expect there to be even more in the coming weeks.